


Don't Push When It Says Pull

by Claudina



Category: Persona 5
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 08:25:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10872939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claudina/pseuds/Claudina
Summary: Or: don't think when he says feel.





	Don't Push When It Says Pull

The first time Goro kissed Akira, he panicked so much that he was sure he forgot how to function.

Had he predicted this, he might have allowed himself to prepare of what was to come. To cook up an excuse. To build a wall of fakeries. To make twenty escape plans. However, he somehow overlooked this, and to be honest, he was baffled at himself for getting caught off-guard by this…rendezvous. Between the shy glances, the borderline flirty banters, the late-night secret text messages exchanged without Morgana’s knowledge and absolutely everything else they did to each other, it should be expected that their relationship would progress deeper, but that was what normal people knew, right?

Unfortunately for Goro, common normalcy was never part of his life to begin with, and judging from the long list of failed relationships he had in the past, his life’s definition of normal relationship progression would likely send them both into a ditch. When he considered it, that thought scared Goro even more than the haphazard way this relationship was going in, and he panicked even more.

“Sorry,” Goro whispered as he pulled away from Akira’s lips, allowing himself a few deep breaths to try taming the anxious feeling that was bubbling inside him. Akira looked at him concernedly but gave him the space that he needed, all the while observing the way Goro’s shoulders heaved and trembled slightly. He sorely wanted to gather Goro into his arms right there and then to keep him together, but he understood that personal space was important to Goro right now, and he respected that.

After a while, Goro found himself a little calmer and he sighed in defeat. Having feelings was not something he was used to, after all, and the fact that he was hit by a tidal wave of them within a short period of time didn’t help any. Goro had always fought feelings like they were the plague: all that he knew in life was to beat them into submission, because in the end, they would only hurt anyway. He never expected to allow himself to open up again, and when he somehow did, the rush almost caused him to tumble out of his mind, torn between the knowledge that he should fight the feelings again and the small plea from his heart to listen to his true feelings for once.

The change was a lot to handle for someone whose daily emotional journey was usually as predictable as the train schedule. Not that many people wound understand this.

But _he_ did.

“Does it hurt anywhere?”

Akira looked at him sincerely, his fingers moulding to the curve of his jawline, trying to see if he could feel Goro’s pain too because it looked so tangible that he thought he could taste the bitterness that was left on his lips. Normally, Goro would have recoiled and pulled away from anyone who tried to trace his skin, but this time, he leaned into Akira’s fingers while he shook his head, letting Akira know that he was all right.

It felt weird, yes. It felt like being drowned, yes. It felt a lot like losing his mind, yes.

However, he didn’t think that he should push Akira away. He didn’t feel like he could anyway.

Because, for some reasons he couldn’t recognise, even though everything should have hurt—even though feelings were supposed to hurt, this time they didn’t.

Goro wrapped his arms around Akira’s waist and, against the wish of the alarm bells that rang ceaselessly in his head to tell him to run away and retreat to the safety of his walls of façade, he pulled Akira closer until he could rest the crown of his head on the crook of his neck. In return, Akira rested his cheek in the nest of Goro’s hair, his fingers desperately grasping onto the ace detective’s back, as if he was afraid that his existence would evaporate back into the universe.

When morning arrived, Goro found himself buried in a cloud of blankets and Akira’s warmth, his hair a curtain of auburn that filtered the sunrise out. His brain thumped disapprovingly in the cage of his ribs and his heart hummed softly inside his skull, but Goro felt like he had understood how it felt to be a little more human, to be the vulnerable person he usually stashed away under his pretences. As Goro listened to the quiet within him, he could make out the words his heart was trying to tell his mind: _thank you for listening to your true feelings this time._


End file.
